Finale ratings fall just short of setting a new record

The ratings for the season three finale of Game of Thrones are in a day early this week. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news: the initial airing of “Mhysa” delivered 5.4 million viewers. James Hibberd of EW notes that this is up 28% over last year’s finale.

TVByTheNumbers has the details: 5.393 million watched at 9 PM with another 879k tuning in at 11 PM, for a total of 6.272 million on the night.

Winter Is Coming: Surprised it didn’t top 5.5 million, I guess that will have to wait until the season 4 premiere. Overall, the numbers this season have been a huge success. And the announcement that Thrones recently became HBO’s second most-watched show ever means that the show is not going anywhere.

UPDATE: In addition, the season finale has set a new piracy record with over a million downloads in less than 24 hours; this according to TorrentFreak.

It’s great to see the numbers staying strong. Can the ratings continue to climb indefinitely? Hopefully HBO isn’t relying on that in their continued support of the show – that can be a dangerous business model.

Wow, that is really surprising considering the amount of hype and buzz after the Red Wedding. I can’t believe “the Climb” beat the season finale. This is the first time GoT did not set a new record for the season finale. There was barley even a rise from last weeks episode. Maybe some of those people who threatened to stop watching weren’t joking this time.

Not disappointed. Was a great season. The numbers have increased steadily, but all the buzz during the season is best.

There were some factors last night; NBA finals game, Tony Awards, some season premieres like Falling Skies (that I’ve fallen way behind on because I got bored), people in Summer mode.
Whatever. Great season and excited for the next!

TWD goes up against Sunday Night Football, the Oscars, and Golden Globes and it has never stopped it from putting up massive ratings so I don’t see how the NBA or Tonys would prevent GoT from getting series highs.

TWD goes up against Sunday Night Football, the Oscars, and Golden Globes and it has never stopped it from putting up massive ratings so I don’t see how the NBA or Tonys would prevent GoT from getting series highs.

What does Basic or premium cable have to do with anything? If I said GoT rating suck compared to TWD than your comment would make sense. A lot of people blame strong competition when the ratings are lower than expected but that is rarely the case.

Did I say the show is going to be cancelled?? These ratings are fantastic for cable especially for HBO. The show is a huge hit and the show will be on for many years to come but can we stop pretending that it isn’t somewhat disappointing that the season finale coming after one of the most talked about episodes of TV in years barely even got a ratings bump and did not set a new series high.

Not a book purist in any sense, but I am honest enough to say that any season with big chucks of repetitive Theon torture scenes and aimless Bran wandering can’t compare to the fantastic first season.

Sadly, by having read the books, I can think of ways that Bran’s story could’ve been done 100x better… how big reveals like “We’re not going to Castle Black, we’re going beyond the Wall” could have been done so that they were the main focus of scenes / heightened stakes…. rather than being hidden in a (well acted) random monologue about Osha’s late husband.

Better writers could keep Theon on the show and getting tortured and manipulated by Ramsay, and yet not just a set of repetitive torture porn scenes.

You can be a fan of the show AND believe that D&D f’ed up Jon’s storyline with the Halfhand in Season 2.

You can still be a fan of the show and say that this season had MAJOR issues (I’ve only pointed out 2).

SerCountryFriedSteak,
I thought the first season was crap in the first half . It didn’t strike me until the most rewatch but poeple are really overrating it just because it had a strong finish . Also all are you doing is complain abut the stuff you don’t like but never complement the show when it’s doing stuff right . So don’t give me that holier than you attitude because you’re not convincing anyone .

I now have every confidence that barring some unforseen disaster like their funds taking a total nosedive, HBO has already decided to grant GoT a fifth, possibly even sixth season already. Of course, they won’t announce it until next year.

I also have every confidence that some worry-warts will wring their hands until official announcements are made.

I once said I’d be happy if the show got three seasons. Like an idiot, I assumed that would mean the first three books would be covered. However, since we’ve still got half of the best book left (and many of its best scenes), I now amend that to four seasons. And we’ve got that, now, too. So either way, I’m happy.

All shows have competition, but NBA Finals have huge ratings and do affect other show’s ratings. You can debate whether show X, Y and Z had a larger effect than Show N, but does not change the fact that the Finals did lower Thrones numbers.

This is pretty darn good for a show that needs a character flow chart.

Cersei’s baby talk prompted my non reading husband to ask the question.. How many kids does Cersei have again? After I gave him the what planet are you on stare… I calmly listed the kiddos and told him the GOT budget couldn’t afford them this season.

I agree completely.
I guess I thought Season 3 was an improvement over Season 2, but Season 1 is still the strongest IMO.

_ I think Season 1 was by far the strongest in narrative. Most likely because it required the least amount of tweaking by D&D.
– Season 2 was stronger in scale, but it was very inconsistent with 2 major arcs struggling (Dany and Jon).
– Season 3 improved on the scale even more and had a more cinematic feel that was awesome. It worked out some of the weak arcs, but it struggled with adapting arcs for the first of two seasons from a single book.. or maybe it was just adapting the ever-growing nature of the books into the same 10 episodes.

Lets hope for 6m for the season 4 premiere, hopefully HBO won’t be stupid and schedule it up against the Walking Dead again. TWD always comes back the week after the Super Bowl for 8 episodes so they need to push the premiere back until April again.

Next season will see a further bump, judging by the increase (from what I can tell based on facebook posts) in the number of people that binge-watched seasons 1 and 2 this past weekend after the RW-media frenzy finally convinced them to watch.

I was thinking during the show last night that the Tony’s and NBA Finals may hurt the viewership a bit, and it seems they likely did. Maybe there is another factor but this season the ratings got better after great episodes and went down after mediocre ones, so coming off the RW I expected closer to 5.7. But this is still a good sign. 28% above last year is significant.

I’m impressed by how well she understands her character, here’s her analysis of Arya after the RW (I like her mature comment about Gendry: I agree, it would be a cliche to let them become too close friends):

She’s starting to get this sort of love-hate thing with the Hound. She doesn’t really like him, but she knows that he’s a good guy to be with, because she’s not going to get in trouble [while he’s protecting her]. But I think now she’s really put up this barrier and she’s not willing to trust anyone fully anymore. And I think she really did struggle with that anyway, properly trusting people. She’s really kind of kept herself to herself. I think now she’s not really sure what she’s going to do. She doesn’t really have a goal anymore. …

Yes, to go home and see her family, and now I think she thinks, “Well, maybe home isn’t safe anymore. And if they’re here, then who’s at home?” And she saw all these Stark guards getting killed straight in front of her, and I think it was kind of a wake-up call, where she was like, “Home doesn’t mean you’re going to be safe.” At the moment, she’s completely numbed by the whole thing, but I think in the long term she has a bit of a struggle to see where she’s going to go. …

Yeah, I think Arya is always doing the right thing, and it might not be the best thing. I can see her really now kind of changing and realizing, “No one else is going to do anything for me, and no one’s actually here to help me.” I think we’re going to see a darker side to her, and maybe not the honorable Stark that we know already. I think it’s maybe going to start getting a bit more nasty and brutal from here on in.

So do you think the Arya/Gendry shippers are going to end up being disappointed?

I think so, yeah. [Laughs.] It’s just too cliché, I think. [Author] George R.R. Martin would never do that. If you want something to happen on the show, it almost certainly will not happen. It’s always gonna go the other way. And personally, I also see Arya being on her own in the end and doing quite well.

Tyrion: the season will start with his being involved in prep for Joffrey’s wedding, trying to play house with Sansa and both being miserable, and further alienating Shae. His arrest will likely happen at the end of episode four, and the rest of the season will be his trial, escape and murder of Tywin and Shae.

Cersei: The Purple Wedding, attempting to escape her engagement, gradually learning that Jaime is not the same man, attempts to avenge Joffrey and halt the marriage between Margaery and Tommen.

Jaime: Being forced into the role of Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, fighting with Loras who wants to join it, fighting with his father, further convincing Brienne of his honor and reconnecting with Tommen.

Dany: the whole of the Meereen section of ASoS.

Jon: his arrest after being suspected of oathbreaking, being freed to help defend Castle Black, final farewell with Ygritte, meeting with Mance and learning of Val’s existence and the fact that she’s expecting, his trial and subsequent promotion to Lord Commander.

Arya: the remainder of her travels with the Hound, ending with her refusal to kill him.

Sansa: her marriage to Tyrion and Joffrey’s murder prompting her to leap at the chance to go back to Harrenhal (at least that’s where she thinks she’s going) with Littlefinger, ending with witnessing Littlefinger murder Lysa Tully.

Bran: They will probably add to his story by fleshing out Jojen teaching him to warg, developing Meera more, meeting Coldhands and probably having to fight off some wights.

Theon: his being turned into Reek and learning of what happened the last season, his attempts to break free, possibly even some material from ADwD and Ramsey’s marriage. Hard to know; he’ll probably feature in about four episodes, tops. The norm for this show. He could be used to introduce Maege Mormont, the other Karstark brothers, etc. as he and Ramsey go with Roose trying to win the North. That’s what I would do.

Sam: His story will be tied with Jon’s as he tries to get Jon exhonerated and elected Lord Commander. Plus his continuing relationship with Gilly.

Gendry: Hard to say here. He’ll probably meet back up with the BWB but what kind of reunion will it be?

Davos: I truthfully don’t know how they’ll extend his story. His ADwD chapters will just about have to be saved for Season Five.

Stannis: His journey to the Wall and beginning to fall out with Melisandre, as well as the ending the book gave him.

Yara: I’m quite sure they’re gearing up to make her a regular, and will incorporate her cliffhanger ending by having her coming back after being unable to find Theon and learning that her father is dead and her three uncles have returned, each vying for the Driftwood Crown. She thinks she should be able to win the crown, because unlike her uncles, she’s well known the Ironborn. In this story, Victarion and Aeron should be long absentees as well as Euron (which would explain their absence so far).

We’ll probably also at least start the Dorne plot, since most of it takes place prior to Tywin’s murder.

JamesL:
Lets hope for 6m for the season 4 premiere, hopefully HBO won’t be stupid and schedule it up against the Walking Dead again.TWD always comes back the week after the Super Bowl for 8 episodes so they need to push the premiere back until April again.

If someone chooses to watch the Walking Dead over Game of Thrones, I don’t know if I even want them to be associated with our fan base.

I tried re-editing my post so that the whole thing is in paragraph-centric spoiler tags (the attempt to make it one big spoiler block didn’t work) and now I can’t edit it at all. Please add the spoiler tags, I beg of you!

I hope the switch the story line in season four up a little bit. I think that they should haveArianne come to kings landing with the RVThat way the audience gets introduced to her early so shes not a big surprise out of nowhere in season five. Either that or give her a storyline that is completely made up and show her in Dorne with Myrcella.

Sunday night’s third season closer “Mhysa” delivered 5.4 million viewers, just shy of its 5.5 million all-time high that was set several weeks back, and totaled 6.3 million for the night. That’s up 28 percent compared to last season’s finale. Thrones was against some strong summer broadcast competition that included the NBA Finals and, to a lesser degree, the Tonys.

Moreover, this season of Thrones has firmly surpassed True Blood as HBO’s second most-popular season of all time. The third season of Thrones currently averages 13.6 million viewers across all platforms, which is above True Blood‘s summit of 13 million viewer average in 2010. The Sopranos remains No. 1 with 14.4 million for its 2004 season.

I believe the finale was boring and uneventful. The interesting thing that happened was the conversation at the small council and the Bolton/Frey interaction. Dany, Bran, Sam, and Ramsay/Theon was a waste of screen time. Yara/Balon was ok because it set up a future conflict. Gendry and Davos was boring also but setting up Stannis to go north seems mildly interesting. No real reaction to Robb’s/Catelyn’s death and of the Stark men. Everyone seemed to be like ‘ehh’. Jaime and Cersai was a major downer. They misplayed that situation. Overall, this was the worst season of the 3 with the exception of the major emotional drain of the Red Wedding. Not bad, but the worst of the 3 seasons so far. I hope season 4 gets back to business.

Arya: That’s nowhere near enough material for her. I think the Hound’s “death” will be around midseason. Then to Braavos (or maybe Yunkai!) to study under the Kindly Man. Her assassin training has a lot more expansion possibilities than her travels with the Hound, IMO.

Dany: Same problem. Whether or not they depict the conquest of Meereen as in the books, they have to get into her rulership, at least somewhat. Given the triumphant note of this season’s finale, I think it would be a good decision for her to have to start making hard decisions in light of the assassinations & rebellions.

Bran: I think the solution to this storyline, as well as Theon’s, is actually taking Ramsay at his word & sending them after him. Bran will be beset on all sides, and will only escape due to the intervention of Bloodraven. Ramsay will also have to reckon with Yara – they’re clearly setting that up.

Stannis: No idea. I think they may have to either make up material here, or (travesty!) actually have him show up to aid the NW by midseason rather than end season. Not sure how they get the best of Mance then. Also, we know Manderly is being cast for next year, so I think Davos ADWD chapters will be part of it – how else to bring him into narrative at this point?

Gendry: As I mentioned on previous thread, fascinated to see if he will even be in the show next year, and if so what he will do.

Sam: Will fight much more actively in the Battle at the Wall. You heard it here first.

I’m never good at predicting ratings. I thought for sure it would top 5.5 million and may push 6 million. In the grand scheme of things this doesn’t matter, but it would have been cool to see. I’m not sure how much the show will grom in regards to premier episodes, but I still believe there is room to grow overall. The show is in no danger of ever being cancelled at this point.

Season 4 should be another strong season, but it is obviously going to start diverging from the books at some point. The EW.com interview with D&D/GRRM was a real eye opener. George honestly feels that because AFFC/ADWD were long, monster books that there is enough material to create 3+ seasons from those books. You can tell D&D don’t believe there is and are working hard to decide which storylines and characters are necessary moving forward. I think it is a near certainty at this point that we won’t get all 3 Greyjoy brothers. I doubt we get the Sand Snakes, as they may be reduced to just one character. And I’m calling it right now, there will be no ‘Aegon’ or Blackfyre plot in the show.

Isn’t Cersei’s reaction ideal for her character?
She wanted him back so much…she should be glad to have him back for many reasons…and she should have run to him….but his looks and chopped off hand caused her to not even budge.
That’s the type of person she is.

…and I just realized the queen of thorns was Bond’s wife….and I’m one of the few who like Lazenby’s bond movie.

What Is Dead May Never Die, The Prince of Winterfell, and even The North Remembers were all excellent episodes, and are in my top ten (in addition to Blackwater, obviously). Season two is a little underrated, I think.

I haven’t rewatched S2 much since it aired. I usually watch each episode 3 or 4 times throughout the week it airs. I don’t know, maybe I was just frustrated by the focus of S2. Jaime and Jon are my favorite characters and one was not present for most of the season and the other was mishandled. I also thought they underutilized Stannis and Co. last year as well. ‘What Is Dead May Never Die’ and ‘The North Remembers’ were really good episodes and ‘Blackwater’ is still the best episode of the series, IMO, but as a whole S3 was much better for my tastes.

You have it backwards. AMC scheduled the Walking Dead against Game of Thrones, who had announced the air date months beforehand. And even if they due schedule it against the walking dead, who cares? HBO doesn’t care much about initial ratings.

Like I said, TWD always comes back the week after the Super Bowl. After HBO announced the premiere date of GoT S3 I immediately realized that the GoT premiere was most likely going to fall on the same day as TWD finale. HBO should have also realized this and had the premiere April 6.

Your right that the premiere ratings don’t matter much to HBO but I like to see the ratings as big as possible and it just isn’t smart to put it up against the biggest show on TV. Normally a GoT premiere would be the biggest and most buzzed about thing on TV and social media but when it goes up against TWD it will not be.

Great finale. Much slower than previous finales, but the scene with the wolf head literally stopped me sleeping, and I loved the scenes with Stannis and the Night’s Watch stuff. I thought the final scene was a little disappointing, when you consider the bold endings of S1 and 2, but after the RW they needed to do something happy. But THAT happy? Well… Unfortunately I discovered this season that I completely hate bran and wish it were him and not Robb at the wedding. He’s turned into such a whining bitch. But I really liked Jaime’s return to kings landing, a nice conclusion to his arc this season. And I also really liked the Greyjoy/Bolton business. I guess it just didn’t have the memorable content of Valar Morghulis (Jaqen is dead, HotU, Drogo, etc).

The lack of material may simply mean they don’t get much in the way of screen time this season (those that lacked it). Remember, this show has no problem crediting someone as a “regular” and giving them three or four episodes worth of material. We barely saw Stannis, Melisandre or Davos this season, but they were apparently regulars.

However, yes, Arya will probably make it to Braavos this season. I don’t think she’ll meet the Kindly Man yet, though. Her last shot will probably be her viewing the Titan’s bastard for the first time.

I agree with you completely. There are so many scenes that were rushed through, not getting to the heart of what is going on. They really need a 12 episode season. That could help a little, but streamlining some characters story lines are the way to go since they don’t have that option.

You can’t just have fan favorites like Dany or Arya only appear in 4 or 5 episodes next season though. Well they can but fans won’t be happy about it.

Not only they can, but they have to and they will…thank god. Andthe fans can go fuck themselves, they certainly not watching this show to feel “happy”. If GRR Martin did what the fans wanted the series would suck…how can people still be blind to that??

Your right that the premiere ratings don’t matter much to HBO but I like to see the ratings as big as possible and it just isn’t smart to put it up against the biggest show on TV.Normally a GoT premiere would be the biggest and most buzzed about thing on TV and social media but when it goes up against TWD it will not be.

GoT is the biggest show on TV not TWD, because millions of HBO non-subscribers download the show illegally to watch it (granted, many do the same with TWD, but the buzz is not the same..). And god almighty, I watched the last 8 episodes of TWD this last saturday and this show sucks balls, talk about a failed adaptation…Kirkman should be ashamed

This is also the same show that somehow managed to get Theon into 6 episodes from a book where he does not appear at all. I don’t think the producers have an obligation to get “fan favorites” into the show where it does not support the story, but it is important to have a clear arc for important characters like Dany and Arya. Limiting their activities to the last third of ASOS next season wouldn’t accomplish that.

I think this season was the best overall, but they each had their strengths.

Season 1 had the strength of having a strong ending to every single episode, having the best focus and least characters, nailing Baelor and ending the season on a very strong scene. But it is visually weak, is very stilted at points, overburdened with exposition and is the weakest at overall character development, with many scenes feeling like they were going through a plot point motion.

Season 2 had probably the best dialogue to my mind, some great visuals, Blackwater and just an awesome amount of Tyrion-ness. But it didn’t nail every ending and while I don’t mind deviations from the books at all, they had too many where the new plotline didn’t work. That’s one thing about staying with the book — it logically works. But adding politics to Qarth made it rushed (what happened?) and Jon’s find with Qhorin had little oomph because of the changes there. I’d argue they should have changed MORE if they were going to change at all.

Season 3 had the best visuals, great dialogue, the most thematically tight scripts, the shortest expositionary ramp up (2 eps), the RW, less deviations than Season 2, and through about episode six was nailing every ending. I’d say it’s drawbacks were that the first half season climax probably should have been pushed back a bit (to Ep 5 or so) as 5-6-7 as a bit too much filler and that the Episode 10 denouement was only that — I’m not really sure why they didn’t make the taking of Yunkai all in Episode 10.

All in all, the show still has some issues — mostly in failing to build the tension on every plot point as well as they built it on the RW or Sam the Slayer or Beric’s fight with the Hound.

But overall, it’s fantastic. And Season 3 is the best so far. I just tried to watch Defiance — watched about three minutes and turned it off. Just terrible.

Most Unsullied complaints I see about Daenerys is that this season she had it ‘easy mode’ (which imo is fair for her considering S1 she was a slave and s2 she was a beggar queen).

There is just no way she can spend all next season conquering Meereen. She needs to get to ruling it ASAP, where she starts to make a lot of flawed decisions and her failings as ruler will probably make her interesting again to these Unsullied. Stretch the politics. Locking up her dragons is the most logical ending.

(But in the long run, I’d play up the Jorah/Daario/Hizdahr triangle and end with the marriage to Hizdahr so that way she spends the last half of Season 5 wandering around the Dothraki Sea while the Battle of Meereen rages…..but I think that’s another topic entirely.)

I’m not much a fan of TWD but the fact is it is the biggest show on TV so it is not smart to put the premiere up against it.

It’s not smart if losing viewers for a showing of the episode is detrimental to your business, but putting Game of Thrones up against TWD has no impact on HBO’s bottom line. I guarantee that no one who subscribed to HBO just to watch Thrones said “Oh, the first showing of the premiere is on at the same time as the finale of TWD. Nevermind, I’ll just save my money.”

I also guarantee that no one who was subscribing to HBO anyway said, “HBO scheduled the first showing of Game of Thrones’s first episode at the same time as TWD finale? I’m canceling my subscription!”

So really, it does nothing. It’s not like anyone who missed the first showing couldn’t catch up. They played it three times Sunday night, repeatedly throughout the week and have it immediately available online for free to anyone with a subscription. For subscribers, HBO series are literally the easiest to catch up on mid-season of anything on television.

I pretty much agree with this. My main hesitation about this season has to do with Theon, which I think is the worst storyline the show has featured thus far (yes, even worse than Dany & Jon in season 2).

Pretty much everything else, however, was aces – even the Bran storyline, which stalled badly for much of the season, was fairly engrossing by the end. And while I generally hesitate to rank episodes given the serial nature of the show, “Second Sons” is my favorite hour of the entire series thus far.

These numbers just show how hard it is to add half a million viewers on HBO in one season and why the figure of 6 million seemed always a bit ambitious to many of us. The increase GOT saw this season is a great achievement in and of itself but it’s entirely possible that it is close to topping out, as TB topped out, just because the show, at the end of Season 3, has found close to all the HBO subscribers who are going to be interested enough to view the show on first-run.

The male-oriented live sports events are proving to be the toughest competition, since word travels so fast re: the results. As someone said above, everyone knows GOT will repeat and repeat and repeat throughout the week.

The challenge to me in Season 4 will be to hold these very good numbers, for “bragging rights” over True Blood at its apex if not for profitability. On the bright side, I suspect TB will continue its ratings’ slide in Season 6 and thus grow even dimmer in the HBO firmament.

I pretty much agree with this. My main hesitation about this season has to do with Theon, which I think is the worst storyline the show has featured thus far (yes, even worse than Dany & Jon in season 2).

Pretty much everything else, however, was aces – even the Bran storyline, which stalled badly for much of the season, was fairly engrossing by the end. And while I generally hesitate to rank episodes given the serial nature of the show, “Second Sons” is my favorite hour of the entire series thus far.

Second Sons was great.

I was less disturbed than most by Theon’s storyline. I’m not sure it was necessary, but I didn’t think it was awful, and while I suppose you could have caught a scene or two, overall, I thought it worked in regards to his “my father lost his head at King’s Landing.” One of the better scenes of the season.

That said, I realize most of my top highlights of this season were generally “big” scenes — with the exception of the bath scene. Or perhaps “action” scenes.

And I think I actually prefer the season two stunning dialogue sequences — Arya & Tywin, Tyrion & Everyone, “Too Many Vows.”

DH87:
These numbers just show how hard it is to add half a million viewers on HBO in one season and why the figure of 6 million seemed always a bit ambitious to many of us. The increase GOT saw this season is a great achievement in and of itself but it’s entirely possible that it is close to topping out, as TB topped out, just because the show, at the end of Season 3,has found close to all the HBO subscriberswho are going to be interested enough to view the show on first-run.

The male-oriented live sports events are proving to be the toughest competition, since word travels so fast re: the results. As someone said above, everyone knows GOT will repeat and repeat and repeat throughout the week.

The challenge to me in Season 4 will be to hold these very good numbers,for “bragging rights” over True Blood at its apex if not for profitability. On the bright side, I suspect TB will continue its ratings’ slide in Season 6 and thus grow even dimmer in the HBO firmament.

I think there’s a decent chance of a Red Wedding-inspired boost for Season 4. There’s a group of people that are out there going, “Okay, finally, you got me. Let me start at the beginning.”

It’s not huge — I can’t imagine many people buying HBO for it — but I can see a few, and I can see some people picking HBO when they switch packages and I can see some HBo subscribers finally jumping on.

After that, I expect a slow decline. Not because of the story, as some will say, but as you say, there’s a life cycle to these things. Most shows — especially dense scripted material — peak very early as it is hard to get into it. GoT will peak next year, I think.

Can you tell me if repeat viewings, especially on different platforms, but by the same subscriber, are included or excluded in the weekly total? I would assume the technology exists to identify this, maybe not? But if not, what is the perspective at HBO about repeats? I know ‘nuthing’ about the industry, and am curious.

Not a book purist in any sense, but I am honest enough to say that any season with big chucks of repetitive Theon torture scenes and aimless Bran wandering can’t compare to the fantastic first season.

Sadly, by having read the books, I can think of ways that Bran’s story could’ve been done 100x better… how big reveals like “We’re not going to Castle Black, we’re going beyond the Wall” could have been done so that they were the main focus of scenes / heightened stakes…. rather than being hidden in a (well acted) random monologue about Osha’s late husband.

Better writers could keep Theonon the show and getting tortured and manipulated by Ramsay, and yet not just a set of repetitive torture porn scenes.

You can be a fan of the show AND believe that D&D f’ed up Jon’s storyline with the Halfhand in Season 2.

You can still be a fan of the show and say that this season had MAJOR issues (I’ve only pointed out 2).

While Game of Thrones is my favorite show currently on tv and also my all time favorite, there are a few factors that I believe hold it back in its initial viewing ratings. The fact that the ratings are so high despite these factors are a testament to how great this show really is.
1. The show is based off extensive source material and because of this issues in organic story telling arise. The books of course are very organic and so is the show for the most part, however in writing an adaptation of such depth certain things must be moved, cut, and changed, all while maintaining the story that GRRM intended to tell through his books while keeping it appealing to an audience that reaches much further than just book readers. Not to take away from shows like the Sopranos where the writing is phenomenal, but I feel that when the writing is purely original for the show it does not take the same level of careful planning an adaptation such as this takes

2. True Blood, the show with the highest viewed episode in hbo history, was a show that took advantage of the already extremely popular vampire craze that was going on at the time and is only now (thankfully) dying out. Game of Thrones is just now in its third season bringing the fantasy genre into full on mainstream. The demographic that True Blood is positioned to was already established and waiting for a gritty HBO show to come out to add some sex and violence to the lame teen craze.

3. This one is more of an opinion but I always feel that critics are more hesitant to give their critical acclaim to an adaptation, probably because it is based off of material already written. This, in my opinion is the reason why Thrones hasn’t won more emmys than it has at this point.

One notes there are only USA numbers, I don’t know if Canada is included?
We never get total foreign numbers, which would be interesting to know since HBO has improved their non domestic distribution.
Nor do we ever find out final DVD sales world wide.

Wow really…I thought Season 2 was ok…I still felt engaged and intrigued….with the Red Woman, Stannis Introduction, Theon’s betrayal and Rob’s spiral I was glued……to be honest, season 3 has me slightly concerned about the future of the show….

There will be clear arcs for them, no doubt. But even major characters on this show often don’t appear in more than about 6 episodes. Robb only appeared in 6 episodes in the second season, when he was unquestionably a favorite.

I’m sure that what’s left of ASoS will be plenty of material for Dany; 8 episodes at least, easily, even if that means breaking up some of her chapters and maybe adding some stuff that the earlier seasons skipped (like introducing Belwas, etc.).

It’s Arya I’m not sure about. Okay, it probably will go as far as getting her to Braavos. But if they show the Kindly Man stuff, what’s left for her in Season Five?

The problem with Arya’s assassination school arc is that it is disconnected from everything else in the story (save Sam’s brief detour). That gave Martin very little reason to focus on her in AFFC and ADWD, so she faded into the background. Since she’s apparently about to leave Braavos anyway, that raises the question of whether she ever needed to be there in the first place.

She should still go to Braavos in the show, if for no better reason than that’s where Jaqen told her to go. But there’s no reason she has to waste away there so long. Starting in season 5, the Kindly Man could deploy her in, say, Meereen – where she would instantly become a relevant player once again. And better yet, help connect Dany’s equally disconnected (but far more involved) storyline to the greater narrative.

For me, “Too Many Vows” was actually one of the more disappointing scenes in the series, and one of the few that makes me feel like a “purist.” The scene in the books is one of my very favorites, and I think features some of Martin’s best writing – it’s one revelation after another, dished out across a great battle of wits. But the decision to break it up into two scenes in the series diminished the effect of each half. Like Jaime and Brienne’s bath scene, they would have done better to keep close to the source material with that scene.

For me, “Too Many Vows” was actually one of the more disappointing scenes in the series, and one of the few that makes me feel like a “purist.” The scene in the books is one of my very favorites, and I think features some of Martin’s best writing – it’s one revelation after another, dished out across a great battle of wits. But the decision to break it up into two scenes in the series diminished the effect of each half. Like Jaime and Brienne’s bath scene, they would have done better to keep close to the source material with that scene.

I guess I’m bummed for you that you feel that way? I thought they were wonderfully done, fantastically acted and wonderfully shot.

One of the things about the visual media over the book is acting — in general, I prefer books because of the depth, but man, acting on video can elevate things to a level that a book can’t hit. NCW knocked it out of the park there.

But if I worked for the network, I would be disappointed. I know all the fan boys come to the shows defense, but come on. If you have one of the most talked about scenes in a very, very long time, you should be setting ratings records, or at least beating “The Climb”.

Yes, there was NBA finals and Tony’s. But come on – the most talked about and shocking scene last week? A scene so crazy that mainstream media paid attention to it?

If more viewers watched “The Climb”, it means that less HBO subscribers tuned in than they should have. And that is a disappointment.

nyanmiau:
Are they considering the latinamerican viewers? Or the fact that I turn on my tv to watch it doens’t count?

lol…yes, the fact that we turn on our tv to watch in Latin America does count. Otherwise, HBO wouldn’t be producing original shows in Spanish like Capadocia, Prófugos or the new Sr. Ávila, for instance.

If you check out Google Trends, you can see how the show’s doing in Latin America. The numbers aren’t great per se, but taking into consideration that HBO is cable and the Latino culture in general, I’d say the show’s a HUGE success.

I’ve watched all of the TB seasons no matter how cheesy it’s gotten, including last night’s episode. Going directly from GoT to TB in one week makes it easy to see how well GoT is done. For me personally it makes TB that much harder to watch. I’ll fall behind again as usual it looks like and won’t catch up until at some point when I’m really bored.

That’s down from Season 5’s debut at 5.2 million and a million below the series high of 5.53, for the ninth episode of the fourth season (August 21, 2011), making it the most viewed episode to date.

Interestingly, I thought last night’s episode marked a return to tighter story lines, better use of the side stories for comic relief, and a stronger emphasis on character-enhancing dialogue. It’s probably too little, too late for this show, but if the ratings start to crawl back up, after a year of erosion, I’ll know why. I for one was about to cancel HBO post-GOT; I’m going to give TB a few eps to see if it’s worth $16.00 per month.